The Tissue Core sets the standards for the use of human tissue across all research programs at the Cancer Center, providing oversight and guidance for all Cancer Center tissue research for common issues including tissue consent, database and quality control. For historical reasons, some tissue collection and banking are managed at the program level and is supported through SPORE or other grants. The Tissue Core works with these programs, providing specialized tissue collection support. For those programs without their own tissue cores, the Cancer Center Tissue Core acts as central hub for the collection fresh surgical tissue from Mt Zion, Parnassus, San Francisco General Hospital and the Veterans Administrative Medical Center. Tissue collected is stored and distributed to support CHR committee-approved cancer research at UCSF. The Tissue Core also works with several clinical efforts to bank and distribute blood and tissues collected from patients at UCSF or hospitals offsite. The Tissue Core offers routine histology services, including sectioning, staining, histologic interpretation and tissue microarray preparation.